She maybe shouldn’t have said this out loud. Alberta’s energy minister has said that the coronavirus pandemic is the perfect moment for building pipelines—because big protests are banned. “Now is a great time to be building a pipeline because you can’t have protests of more than 15 people,” said Sonya Savage. The province’s minister also said that the economic crisis that’s been sparked by the coronavirus means that “people are not going to have tolerance and patience for protests that get in the way of people working.” Savage reportedly made her remarks during a taping of a podcast hosted by the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors. A spokesman for Savage later said she respects the right to hold “lawful protests,” but didn’t say whether her remark was intended as a joke. Either way, the comment has infuriated environmentalists—writer Bill McKibben tweeted Monday: “They’re literally using COVID as a cover to build pipelines because they know protest is impossible.”
